Between Flights
by schroederplayspiano
Summary: Amid the Neverland tussle, Peter finds a moment alone with Wendy. ONESHOT


_Between Flights_

_By Schroederplayspiano_

Stone scraped against wood, once, twice, before Peter looked down and corrected his angle to the spear he was sharpening. Lost boys' cries pervaded his senses the moment he ceased his piercing movement. He smirked at the noise, fell back against a nearby tree, and resumed constructing his new spear.

With his shoulder against bark, Peter had hoped to relax. He lifted his left foot and placed it over his right. Still, the tenseness did not diminish.

"We're all clear," Felix whispered behind him.

Peter scanned over the lost boys' sleeping bodies. "Good." He said, making sure not to elaborate. He learned long ago, the less he said the better. Felix turned in the corner of Peter's eye, and he knew Felix was waiting for orders. At present, the only wish he had was to assuage the unusual tension he felt throughout his body. Felix could not assuage the pain even if Peter told him about it. If anything, telling him would increase it.

"He still won't sleep."

"I know." Peter shook his head. Felix didn't need to update him on Henry. After all their time together, shouldn't he know his keeper knew everything that happened on his island?

"What are you going to do about it?" Felix tried to engage Peter from his half-trance.

"Nothing."

Felix stepped in front of Peter and demanded his attention. "Nothing?"

Peter scoffed off Felix's seriousness. He bowed out of his penetrating gaze and grabbed the stone again to continue his work. As soon as he struck the spear, however, pain surged into his head. Peter examined the stone and wondered if magic somehow transferred the force of the strike through his head.

He did everything he could to make sure he showed no discomfort. He tossed the stone in the dirt and handed the unfinished spear to Felix, much to his comrade's perplexity. "Take over the watch, will you?" If there was a request in Peter's demand, he hid well.

Felix's brow was still creased when he took Peter's spear. Peter was yards away when Felix called after him, "Where're you going?"

Peter stopped in his tracks and turned back. Felix gulped. Mortification swelled in him as his gaze collided with Peter's. He tightened his grip around the spear and stepped back. There were some questions one did not ask Peter Pan. His whereabouts were one of them. Peter stared Felix down until he turned back to the lost boys.

He waited to make sure Felix would keep to his post before scampering through the bush and disappearing from sight. Once he was sure he was alone, his hands impulsively rose his pain's inception point. Fingers glided from skin into hair and he recalled the pain from an old memory. Her face was the only remedy he remembered working.

Wendy.

Her perfect smile spread in his mind as clear as if she was before him now. Her eyes leveled him as if she knew, not what he was thinking, but his deepest feelings. The feelings she knew he had before he knew himself.

It was impossible. His mind and soul were so complex a young girl such as herself could never figure them out. He was the sole person in the land, in all the lands, to have the power to understand boys' minds and souls. She could never have that power.

Peter scoffed Wendy's image away. He released his head and let his arms fall to his sides. The problem was he was thinking too much. No matter how much he didn't want to admit it, Henry was turning out to be more trouble than he anticipated. Peter congratulated himself on making as much progress as he had, though, and knew it was just a matter of time until Henry fulfilled his purpose in Neverland and everything could go back to normal.

Reassuring himself did not ease the pain either. He could build his confidences all he wanted. Even after he had anticipated all Henry's hesitations and potential setbacks to their journey to Skull Rock tomorrow and found solutions to all of them, Peter's headache still nagged at him.

The stars twinkled above him, caught his eye, and Peter conceded. He pushed off and was soon three hundred feet in the air. Sea breeze ruffled his hair as he hovered over his island. Now watching it from a bird's eye view, Neverland transformed for Peter. It wasn't a battleground or a kingdom or a home for lost boys anymore. It was a piece of him, a part of his soul. No, not a part of his soul, it was his soul. He knew it better than anyone, and yet – it was still a mystery to him.

Stars shone brighter over a corner of the island. Peter convinced himself he was imagining the difference, but every night he checked and every night it was brighter in that corner than any other part of the island. In her corner, the stars were drawn to Wendy's corner always. Peter tried to remember if that corner of Neverland had attracted starlight before Wendy came to the island or if he placed her under the brightest stars on purpose. The logic behind his decision was never clear to him, but he did not dare move her to a different location.

Peter turned and flew a different direction. Not her again. He would do anything to remove Wendy from his thoughts. Sharp pain pierced through his head at the wish. Much to his dismay, the pain caused him to drift downwards a few hundred feet. His pointed toe found a treetop to rest on and the rest of his body did not protest.

From the tree's height Peter knew exactly where he was on the island. _Of course,_ he thought before losing his balance and sliding down the tree trunk. He had to doge and crouch mangled branches in order to reach the bottom safely. His two feet stayed glued against the tree's trunk while Peter pushed himself forward to make sure his prisoner was still inside her cage.

He leaned back when he spotted her. Curled up in a ball, using her long hair as a sort of pillow, he could stare at Wendy all the time if she stayed in that position. How easy it would be to forget about Felix and the lost boys and Henry and Emma if he could spend all his time staring at a sleeping Wendy.

"You have a headache again," the inanimate ball spoke. "Don't you?"

The problem was when Wendy spoke. All his troubles came back to him as soon as her lips parted.

"Don't you ever sleep?"

Wendy sat up. Though they were ten feet apart, when she tucked her chin and looked into his eyes, he felt as she could see through him.

"As much as you ever do." Wendy's voice comforted him. Its tone was softer than any of the lost boys. He forgot, sometimes, how much he needed her.

"You need your sleep-" Peter almost said her name, but caught himself. He knew better. "You're sick."

"Don't pretend to be worried about me, Peter. It's beneath you."

Peter adjusted his position against the tree, but said nothing. When the intensity of her stare grew too much for him, he looked down, kicking a pinecone away from him.

"You think too much." Wendy motioned to his head. "That's why you have a headache."

Peter winced. His weakness, something he could control around Felix, caused his features to skew. "Really?" Crossed-armed, Peter stepped closer to Wendy. "And here I was thinking you put it there."

Wendy nodded away his harshness. She entwined her fingers. "How would I do that?"

"By being you!" Peter untangled his arms and thrust them in Wendy's direction. "The pompous, stone in my slipper, annoying, little girl who-"

"I am not a little girl, Peter!" Wendy interrupted him. "You just want me to be."

Peter's rigid arms fell to his sides. The pair stared at each other, catching their breaths.

"You have no idea who I want you to be," Peter declared after a minute of silence.

"Then tell me!" Wendy said, impassioned. "Tell me who you want me to be and I'll be that." She took a deep breath. "Isn't that what Neverland is about? Being free to be whoever you want to be?"

"Don't talk about Neverland!" He pointed at her. "You know nothing about Neverland. You know nothing about me!"

Wendy bowed her head. She picked up a corner of her dirty white dress and began playing with its fringes.

Peter's heart rate slowed as he watched her fiddle with her clothes. He sunk into the ground, crossed legged before her. He rested his chin on his palm and allowed himself, for once, to be enchanted by her.

"I don't like being used, Peter."

His hand dropped. "I'm not using you."

Wendy released her dress. She managed to stare him down. "You are."

"Am not."

"Yes, you-"

"No, I'm not."

"Peter, you are." Wendy won the last word. "You had a headache, so you thought, rather than me causing it – which I didn't – that I could make it go away."

"What's wrong with that?" Peter asked, innocence in his eyes.

"I don't like it." Wendy stated. "That's what's wrong with it."

"You're also in a cage. I'm sure you don't like that either. But," Peter bent his elbows out and flattened his palms. "There's not much in your control these days, is there?"

"There's not much in yours either, Peter."

Peter retreated. "Excuse me?"

"Like I said, I'm not a little girl. You can trap me in a cage and hide me away from the action, but I know what's going on this island. You're losing your control, aren't you?"

Peter pushed himself up. "You know what? My headache is gone. Thank you." He said and started to walk away.

Wendy shook her head. "You can try and convince yourself that I don't know who you are all you want, Peter Pan. Keep telling yourself what you told Henry – that the reason he needs to save magic is to save me, go on!" Wendy started to raise her voice. "Do it! You know and I know, that's not the reason!"

Peter rushed to the cage and grabbed the bars. In a harsh, deep voice, he interrogated, "Do you really believe I don't want you to get better?"

"Of course you do, Peter." Wendy cried. She tilted her head and a tear fell from the corner of her eye. "You just care way more about saving magic for yourself than you do for me."

"I told you." Peter kept his detached tone. "You don't know me at all." He let go of her cage.

Watching the last tear fall from Wendy's cheek, their gazes connected one last time before Peter tore himself from her with a groan and leaped into the sky.

"I know you better than you know yourself," Wendy whispered to herself. "I know who you want me to be, you just won't admit it. Not yet, anyway."

* * *

A/N: _THANKS for reading! Robbie Kay is killing it this season. xoxo._


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